


One Step Away

by pssychotropical



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: And Cheating, Flashbacks, Lucas is Mark's current boyfriend, M/M, Mark and Johnny aren't blood related, and there's some explicit details or so I'm assuming, but the story mainly focuses on Mark and Johnny, inconclusive ending, problems galore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2020-10-18 22:28:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20646698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pssychotropical/pseuds/pssychotropical
Summary: Lucas, Mark's current boyfriend, wants to finally meet his family after they both bump into Mark's stepbrother, Johnny.





	1. Chapter 1

It's not necessarily Lucas's preferred type of dirty talk, not something he's utilised before in his world of more fucking than talking, but as with many things in their relationship, he agrees when Mark asks him to try it.

The first time they broach the subject of Mark's sexual preferences takes place over two cups of morning coffee, in bed at Lucas's place, that is soon to be their place, one lovely flat downtown, a stone's throw from four coffee shops. His eyebrows slightly furrowed as they usually are when he's thinking, Lucas asks, "Is it like I'm being your daddy or something?"

Mark rolls his eyes. "Not a daddy. I'm not going to call you that."

A quick look of relief passes through Lucas's face, but then he decides to joke about it anyway, "Even if I ask you to?"

"If you ask me to, then maybe." Mark blows at his mug of coffee to cool it down and looks Lucas in the eyes. "Are you into being called a daddy? Daddy?"

It's a discussion born from one morning jerk off, which then moved onto the subject of their previous sexual partners, after two cigarettes but before two coffees. Lucas noticed how the previous night calling Mark a good boy made him immediately come, spurting all over his chest, and that's why he was asking.

"No, not really," Lucas admits. "I've always found that a bit... incesty. You know what I'm saying?"

Mark chuckles and takes a sip of his coffee. It's early October and Mark's wearing Lucas's oversized hoodie because the nights are so cold in the old building. "Yeah, totally." He looks at Lucas with that expectant stare of his. "Do you really know what __I__ am saying?"

"You want to be a bratty boy who gets put in his place by someone older and wiser."

Mark's eyes and nose crinkle seconds before he actually laughs. "That's supposed to be you. You're the older and wiser in this scenario."

Lucas pretends to be offended. He goes, "I guess I shouldn't allow you to say such things from now on."

"I guess you would have to stop me." From behind the mug he's holding in front of his face, he looks at Lucas with his eyes half closed, eyelashes casting shadows. "Perhaps punish me for that?"

Lucas puts their mugs on the bedside table and then sits on top of Mark, immobilising his body underneath his own, which isn't that difficult considering just how smaller Mark is in comparison. Like it's a new skill he's trying to learn, he leans towards Mark and says, still in an experimental tone, "Until you're a good boy again? For me?"

Mark reacts immediately. He lets out a breath which is also a moan, his chest quickly rising and falling, body squirming against the bed. That's how Lucas knows. And suddenly he really likes the idea of fucking Mark who's wearing the sweatshirt Lucas had at the gym the day before.

"I'll put you in your place until you're a good fucking boy. Because that's what you want." He pushes a kiss on Mark's mouth.

By the time they're done, the coffee gets cold, and from that day on Lucas tries to always remember about the way he can easily ignite the flame inside of Mark. It does not, however, cross his mind to wonder about the reason.

During the first year of their relationship Lucas was quick to learn that getting personal information out of Mark wasn't as easy a task as it could seem, not as easy as getting along with him in the first place. Just as much as Mark was always willing to joke and banter and had replies ready to any statement, the moment the discussion entered their private lives, their families and exes, Mark would grow silent. As if out of shyness, he would look for ways to change the subject, avoid unnecessary awkwardness. That's why Lucas appreciated being told anything. Even the smallest confessions or secrets shared while drinking wine or kissing in bed. He had to handle Mark carefully to get those out of him, one by one.

But other times, he had no patience.

"What is it this time?" Mark asks, as they enter their flat, dropping his pair of keys onto the shelf.

Lucas makes an annoyed laugh from where he stands before the hanger, taking off his winter coat. "You are asking me? Are you serious now?" He turns to Mark who's leaning against the door with his arms crossed into a defensive pose. "You have a brother. We've been dating for three fucking years and you've never even bothered to mention that. God, I felt so stupid."

"What's so important about me having a brother?"

Lucas brings a hand to his face, rubbing his temples. "Forget the brother. It's more than that. It's about our relationship and how we don't talk enough about things."

Mark winces, the expression on his face showing that he knows where the argument is heading and doesn't quite like that. "Listen. I'm sorry. I should have already mentioned him to you."

Mark's words seem to satisfy him but only momentarily. "You definitely should have. I can't believe I've never met the guy before."

"Yeah, that's a pity."

"Just like I've never met your parents." Lucas pauses, his glance catching Mark's and holding it. "Why is it that we've never visited them?"

Mark wants to retort but then remembers last year's winter holidays when they came to Lucas's hometown and it turned out to be a much warmer and more memorable experience than Mark would have expected it to be, the type of Christmas celebration he used to see on TV as a child and wished his family could have as well. Over twenty relatives gathered, the whole house buzzing with conversations, wishes, hugs, hands carrying plates, feet walking up and down the stairs, kids running around. Lying on the sofa in front of the fireplace, with Christmas lights hanging from above it and Mark's body snuggled to Lucas's side, Lucas said, "I know you're not much of a family guy but you did great today." He kissed Mark on the forehead and said, "My sisters adore you."

Back to the hall of their flat, present moment, Mark compares that to his own family and a sour expression washes through his face. In order to calm Lucas down, having so many times before refused to do so, he goes, "You want to visit my parents? That's what you're saying?"

A soon-to-be victory smile slowly creeps up Lucas's face but not fully yet, only tugging one corner of his big mouth with big lips, as he takes a step closer. He seems conscious that even if he corners Mark and has him this close and trapped, Mark may still seep through his hands. "If you can't tell me funny stories from your childhood, maybe someone else will be able to."

"Lucas..."

"They know you're gay, right?"

"It's not about that."

"No buts then. You've already seen me as a naked ass baby in the family album." He kisses Mark on the forehead and slightly stoops to kiss him on the lips too. "I think this is a step we have to finally make."

Mark likes to think that the reason he forgot to mention having a brother to Lucas was that technically he didn't have one. For over ten years of his life he had lived as an only child, playing on his own, cutting superheroes out of comic books and making them talk to each other, one superhero per one hand, as his mother would come back home late as usual.

The time they bump into Mark's brother, they are walking through a shopping centre, he and Lucas, and suddenly a silhouette emerges out of the crowd, someone whose presence makes the whole world seem to come to a halt.

He stops in front of them and Lucas glances at Mark, not understanding and awaiting explanation. Johnny's faster than Mark; he extends his hand to shake Lucas's. He introduces himself as Mark's brother, seemingly aware that he and Mark might not necessarily be on the same page, as if Mark could deny being related to him in way, shape or form.

Back to the past, Mark's life changed completely because his mother met Johnny's father at a speed dating event.

One day, leaning towards the mirror while putting on red lipstick, she said, "I've always wanted to give you a father, baby." Mark, the baby, even though he had already turned ten, was standing in the doorframe, suddenly holding it tight as if his life depended on it. His mother had a bright green dress on and her hair was curled, a look Mark had never seen her have. She said, "I didn't tell you this before because I wasn't sure yet, but now..." She put the cap on her lipstick and turned to Mark, extending her arms as if expecting a happy, congratulatory hug to come. But Mark was frozen to the spot. "Now I'm sure. And I have some good news for you too." She stood up, walked the distance that separated them and kneeled in front of Mark, as if forgetting that her dress was ironed and that she was wearing a new pair of black stockings. "Wouldn't you like to have a brother, Mark?" She said, "Johnny's just two years older than you."

Back to the shopping centre, to him, to Lucas with a questioning look in his eyes, and Johnny standing in the middle. Mark hasn't seen him once over the past four years.

"He's never mentioned you before," Lucas goes. His voice betrays that he's just as hurt as he's excited to shake Johnny's hand. Johnny's grip is strong, his arm veiny, veins disappearing under the rolled sleeve of his checkered shirt. It seems like his whole body has gained some rougher contours to it. The image of the man from the past that Mark has been storing in his head no longer corresponds, and seeing him talk to Lucas doesn't seem real, like the two men didn't belong to the same reality and there's no possibility for a crossover. "That's why I was a bit shocked. Sorry about my reaction, man."

"Sounds like Mark, right?" Johnny looks at Mark and Mark remains speechless, hand on the strap of his leather bag. There's some accusation in Johnny's eyes, like he's about to say, "You've promised you would call her regularly. What happened to that?" but then stops himself. Not in front of Lucas.

Mark goes, "Yeah, I'm happy to see you too, man."

Johnny shakes Mark's hand now, briefly, then points at Lucas, "And that is?"

Mark closes his eyes, seconds before he hears Lucas's awkward laugh at the newsflash that Mark's never mentioned his existence to any of his family members. He waits a moment and when Mark doesn't respond, he goes, "We're dating."

It's around two months after Mark's seventeenth birthday that Johnny realised for the first time since they started living together as a family that his younger brother wasn't just a cute kid of his mum's. He had been slowly growing into an attractive man over the past few months or so.

The thought comes to Johnny shocking like a cold slap in the face, one morning as he's seated at the kitchen island, watching Mark appear in the room, his steps rushed and moves careless, possibly about to be late for his morning classes. He's last minute catching his lunch bag and taking the jacket into one hand before leaving the house, without actually putting it on.

It seems to Johnny like it's just the other day that he started being so busy, always out of home, meeting with friends, possibly having dates, forever hunched over his phone and yet never picking up or responding to messages. He's no longer the young boy who used to beg Johnny to keep him company and do stuff together. No childish interest and admiration left in his big eyes when he looks at his older brother.

Johnny's leaning with one elbow against the island, chin in hand, chewing on an apple, when Mark goes, "Yo, Johnny," and then storms outside. Johnny doesn't even have the time to respond, not to mention yelling at him to put the damn jacket on, it's fucking cold outside. He turns his head towards the window and watches Mark run out of the front door and onto the street, through the rain in his ripped blue jeans, t-shirt and unzipped sweatshirt falling off of his one arm, the rucksack hanging from the other. Johnny guesses that he won't put the jacket on the whole way to school. And then he'll get cold. And then his mum's going to be angry. And then she'll be angry at Johnny too.

It seems to Johnny like recently in particular Mark has been constantly making their parents mad. He kept on breaking promises, lying about stupid things and bringing poor marks, even from the subjects he actually enjoyed, all because now his friends at school were so much more important to him. More important than Johnny too, of course.

But if he gets cold, it's Johnny who will have to stay home and check up on him, on this irresponsible little brat lying in bed, duvet pulled up to cover half of his face, from underneath it the only visible part of his body will be the top of his head and his two big boyish eyes, clouded with cold and apologetic. And Johnny will sit on the edge of the bed and lean in to place his hand against Mark's forehead to check the temperature, Mark's skin hot and sweaty against Johnny's palm, and perhaps Mark will release that complaining stupid moan which means he's embarrassed about still being babysit by his older brother, that cracking little noise from between his two thin, chapped lips...

Putting down his apple, Johnny is terrified to learn that he's just twitched in his pyjama bottoms. His dick twitched as he was following Mark to school with his eyes and thinking about him being sick and bedridden. He hasn't exactly got hard but he undeniably registered a hot shudder running down his belly, his guts twisting and his head going dizzy for a few long seconds.

He stands up from the kitchen stool, then sits straight back down, embarrassed by the idea that it actually got him so embarrassed. He tells himself that he needs to quickly stop thinking of Mark in this weird way, right now, stop doing that, but like on a command the images flood his head. The little stubble on Mark's chin. His big Adam's apple moving as he swallows. His two lanky legs in sport shorts running around the field, some muscles slowly developing, white socks dirty with soil. His thin waist and the way his voice has stabilised and become lower than it used to be, telling Johnny's dad that please can he go to that party, there's totally not going to be any alcohol there and no, Johnny won't have to come pick him up again.

It's been barely the span of two breaths and he's already stiff in his underwear. He's never before allowed himself to think it but now he does. He's thinking about what a fine young man Mark is becoming. He knows his body type because he's already seen him wearing only his underwear around the house during hot summer nights.

Just a few years ago, he used to drive to school on his red bike wearing a yellow rain coat and two dotted wellingtons, and now he has to shave in the morning and he's started using the cologne Johnny's dad bought him for Christmas...

"Did he take his lunch with him?" The voice of Mark's mother pulls Johnny out of his reverie, and as he's startled by it, his erection subsides. Thank fucking god.

"Yeah, he did," he blurts out in response.

Mark's mother shows up in the doorway, carrying the laundry basket from upstairs, through the kitchen and into the bathroom. Seeing her, Johnny is once again reminded how similar the two look. Mark has her eyes and mouth. The same small body frame and height.

He swallows with difficulty, his eyes fixed on the bowl with fruits as he's trying to slow down his breathing.

"Can I take your pyjamas?" She comes back from the bathroom. Johnny looks over his shoulder not understanding. He frowns. "I want to wash it. Can you take it off?"

Johnny blinks his eyes. "Now?"

"What is this tone, John? Are you now so grown up that you're suddenly embarrassed by your mum?" Johnny puts her words together with difficulty, as if they were coming to him one by one and he had to catch them with his bare hands like baseballs. Her face changes and she quickly waves her hand. "Fine." She must be reading Johnny's lack of answer as yet another signal saying she can't just call herself his mother because she's not really his mother and she'll never be. Johnny had a mother and now she's dead.

Johnny clears his throat. "I'm sorry," he goes, by which he means allowing the awkward silence to happen and making the woman understand it this way. But also, I'm so fucking sorry that I've just thought this way about your son.

Johnny liked to believe that it was because Mark had reached a certain age where most teenagers felt the need to disagree with the whole world, disagree with the rest of their families in particular, that neither his mother nor Johnny's dad nor Johnny himself were able to stop his mean comments and tantrums thrown on every opportunity, just for a show.

One Saturday breakfast, all four of them at the kitchen table, Mark has another one of those moments. It's when Johnny's dad starts talking about Mark regularly coming back home late. He talks about a possible curfew and then Mark drops both his fork and knife against the plate, loudly, in protest. There's a prolonged silence that follows, in which Mark's eyes seem to say, "I dare you," and then Johnny's dad tells Mark's mum about how a week ago Mark came back home drunk.

Mark's mum makes a gasp, takes a sharp breath in. Her eyes shoot towards her underage son, shocked at the piece of information that has just been revealed.

Mark's ears flush. He leans against the table, towards Johnny's dad who's sitting opposite to him. "You've said you wouldn't tell her."

Johnny's dad isn't angered by Mark's fits. It happens rarely that he loses his poise, if ever, and Johnny knows that from experience. Not even a brat like Mark can manage to change it.

"That was before you were late two more times. And lied about where you were going." The man continues cutting bacon into smaller pieces, Mark's desperate voice not getting under his skin. "You've lost my trust, Mark. I'm starting to worry about you."

"And why are you fucking worrying about me?" Mark stands up from the table, his chair producing a high-pitched scrape against the floor boars, and Johnny's guessing that he can't stand the disappointed look in his mother's eyes. "I'm just gonna remind you. You're not my god damn father. I don't have a father."

As if too afraid of what effect his words are capable of, he immediately after storms out of the room. Everyone becomes silent and even Johnny's father stops eating. He intertwines his fingers and hides his mouth behind his hands. He's still looking at where Mark's just been seated.

"I'm sorry, darling," he tells Mark's mother. "He needs to learn some shame."

Only then, when it's all silence and the sizzling remains of tension, Johnny grows painfully aware that he should have reacted, he should have cut in the moment Mark raised his voice at his father and stop the argument from escalating.

"Johnny," comes the woman's quiet voice, "Can you please go check on him? Maybe he'll listen to you. He's always looked up to you when he was younger."

And after that argument, it only became worse. For over a month, Mark wouldn't talk to neither of the adults. Instead, it seemed, he would choose to approach Johnny if the situation really required that. Like that time he sent Johnny a series of text messages at one am.

"I might have drunk something again." Then another one, "Your dad can't know. He's going to kill me." And the last one, after a longer pause, "Will you come?"

Johnny reads it off the screen of his phone while already lying in bed in his underwear. He responds that fine, give me the address, and starts dressing up. He thinks that there's just nothing else in the world he wants right now than to pop to a shitty party full of drunk seventeen year olds puking their guts out over cheap alcohol, Mark being one of them. He used to think that Mark was a pretty smart kid. Then he got shady friends in his secondary school, as if looking for yet another way to drive their parents mad.

He gets out of home without turning on the lights nor making much noise and takes the car. When he gets to the place, he sees his brother hammered just as he has imagined him to be, and already with some vomit drying on his shirt, which he proceeds to claim isn't his own, he was just helping some girl in the bathroom.

"So that's what got you there? Trying to impress some girl from school?" he asks Mark, his voice mocking, once they're both in the car and driving away from the party, Mark on the passenger's seat, his arms crossed and one foot on the seat. He's fastened his belt only because Johnny has told him to do so. "What was her name? Yeji? This one?"

"Forget it." Mark sighs loudly. "She's already dating this dumb guitarist from our class. I know why. He's taller than me and he has a stupid band that performs at every school party." He continues to blabber about the boy, his voice betraying just how much alcohol he's drunk, much more talkative than he normally is, words escaping his mouth so fast he can't pronounce them properly. Only once he's finished does Johnny chime in.

"So? Was it worth it? You look like shit."

"And I feel like shit."

Johnny smacks him in the arm. "Just because I say it doesn't mean that you can too."

Embarrassed and slightly annoyed, Mark lets out a chuckle clearly intended to conceal those two emotions. "God. You're just like your dad."

Eyes on the road, Johnny frowns. "No, I'm not. You wouldn't call my dad now, would you?"

"I called you only because I know you won't snitch on me." He's looking Johnny in the face as Johnny keeps looking at the road.

"What makes you think that I haven't already told them and that they aren't waiting for me to get your arse home so they can kick some reason into it?"

"Come on now, man." There's something weird in Mark's voice, the way it cracks, like maybe he isn't fully sure if what Johnny says is a joke or not. In the end, maybe they just still don't know each other, despite the passing years.

"And what would I get for not snitching on you? This is no charity work, man," he puts the emphasis on the last word, mirroring Mark's accent. "Will you stop acting like a little shit at every family dinner? Throwing your bratty tantrums?" He turns into the driveway, headlights illuminating the façade of their house, or rather Johnny's house because Mark never wanted to be there, he's never asked his mum to get married and get him a father and a brother as an addition, make them both move out to a different city with a different school. Even now, after years of living together, Mark still seems to be an only child, spoiled and demanding, a boy raised by a single mother who's never seen his biological dad, not even in photos, and doesn't really get what it means to be schooled.

When Johnny turns off the engine and the headlights are off too, only the single lamp by the front door keeping their silhouettes visible, he directs his gaze towards Mark and their eyes meet. Mark's are clouded, blurry, blinking at a lower speed, staring as if there was something funny going on on Johnny's face and he was about to make a joke about it, only needed some more observation to make it snappy enough. His chapped lips part but no words come out. Instead, he leans in. He presses his mouth onto Johnny's.

First, there comes a cold wave of horror which proceeds to run through Johnny's whole body as he realises with a delay what is happening, making him freeze to the seat and open his eyes wider. Then, the following wave is a hot one, just as Johnny remembers the morning a few weeks ago, remembers himself thinking about Mark.

He pulls his head away the moment Mark's tongue gets into his mouth, and takes the key out of the ignition. "Fuck, you're so drunk."

He leaves the car, quickly scanning the windows to see if there's anyone in them.

Mark doesn't remember about the kiss the following morning as he's lying hungover in bed. Johnny has lied to their parents that the boy's caught cold driving his bicycle in the rain. He brings him chicken soup to the bedroom and Mark's openly giggling, amused by the fact that the two of them are now having a conspiracy against their parents and that he's totally getting away with his late night party. Maybe he doesn't get it that Johnny does it because he can't stand their parents being worried and angry all the time. It's always been his chief reason for covering Mark's arse and taking blame for his mistakes.

Now that's his big fucking thank you. Lying cosy in bed and laughing at him.

"You're not allowed to drink," Johnny says, standing by Mark's bed, arms crossed. His voice is stern, more than it's ever been. "This isn't going to happen again."

Mark takes the first spoon of the chicken soup into his mouth and then, spoon between his lips, looks up at Johnny. Even through his hangover, he's still looking cheeky. "Whatever you say, man."

"I mean it this time."

"You mean it every time."

Mark knows how to get under Johnny's skin. It's about the tone in which he chooses to say the words, purposely igniting their conversation, looking for a reaction on Johnny's face.

Johnny crouches by the bed so that their eyes are on the same level, his voice conspiratorially lowered as he goes, "The next time you send me a message crying like a little bitch because you mixed beer with vodka, I'm going to get there and kick your arse in front of all of your stupid school friends until you're too fucking embarrassed to ever show up again at their parties. Is that clear now?"

Midway through his words, the grin fades away from Mark's face. He drops his banter and closes his mouth, perhaps only then realising the gravity of what Johnny has just said. Maybe he's just never been told where's the limit, always blurting out whatever came to his mind and then acting cute and shy in front of his mother.

Now, he's looking Johnny full in the eyes and it's only a hand's distance between their faces because nobody else in the house should hear Johnny's words, only Mark, because that's their secret, because Johnny doesn't want to ever see his mother disappointed again, and Mark's big eyes are circled red and his lips are parted and shiny with the chicken soup.

Johnny stands up and walks out of the room.

As a year passed by and Mark didn't give a hint about why he kissed Johnny, it began to feel like maybe Johnny only imagined it. Like it didn't actually happen.

He's thinking about Mark too much, in general. And he spends too much time with him as well, because it seems like Mark doesn't want to confide in anyone else in the family but him.

It's Johnny whom he tells that it feels like he's been betrayed by his mother. He's lying flat on Johnny's bed, having come into the older man's room without knocking, the same way he used to do it when he was eleven and afraid that someone was sitting in his wardrobe. He would come to Johnny's room, dragging his duvet over the floor, pillow under his arm. They would sleep with their heads on either end of the bed, one of Mark's small feet propped against Johnny's arm.

But now he's lying flat on Johnny's bed and tossing a ball over his head.

"It just really hurt that she didn't come to ask for my opinion first. She just stated it as a fact. We are moving out, pack up your toys."

Johnny's sitting on the floor with Mark's maths coursebook lying open on the bed. All of Mark's coursebooks are actually Johnny's coursebooks, with Johnny's notes jotted on the margins and some of the exercises already filled, Johnny's way of claiming the territory as his own. Johnny's thoughts speed up. It's hard to believe that it's already been two years since he graduated high school. Eight years since Mark moved in. It feels like the two of them still go to school together, passing each other in the halls, Johnny's friends elbowing him whenever they catch Mark looking in their direction and Johnny out of a habit telling them what a pain in the arse having a younger brother is. Feels like just the other day Johnny's best friend said, "So this Mark? That's your new little brother?"

From where he's sitting on the floor, Johnny asks, "If she had asked for you opinion, what would you have said?"

Mark shrugs his shoulders. His eyes are focused on the ball being tossed up towards the ceiling and then falling into his hands. He has short, neatly filed nails, a head of black hair and a fringe like all the other boys at school which he hates and keeps pushing off of his forehead. "I would have told her not to do it."

"Not to marry my dad?"

Mark's face continues to express nothing. "Yeah."

Johnny briefly looks at the coursebook that they have both long forgotten about, then at Mark, scanning the full length of the boy's body. "If that hadn't happened, I wouldn't be now working my arse off to help you pass the exams." It's supposed to be a joke but Mark doesn't laugh at it the way he always laughs at all of Johnny's jokes, even the bad ones.

Instead, in a pensive voice, he goes, "Maybe we would have met in some other way then."

Johnny doesn't know what Mark is getting at. "You used to go to school in another city," he simply states and Mark doesn't respond. A minute of silence passes and all of a sudden Johnny feels weirdly breathless, as if something heavy was pressing hard against his chest. Perhaps he's the only person Mark has told that to.

When Mark sits up on the bed, his hair is ruffled. "Are we done for today?" he asks.

"With maths? You know we haven't actually started yet."

Mark's thin lips waver into an irrepressible smile and Johnny catches himself staring. He's amazed by how the emotions pass through the younger man's face and how he's always a few seconds late to notice. How Mark can one moment be bursting into an uncontrollable laughter, then have an alarming seriousness all over his features, on those sharp cheeks and that sharp chin. He's a young man about to leave his mother's nest and at the same time the feeble, sickly little child Johnny first saw him as, petted, pampered, two images put over each other, one inseparable from the other, two sides of the same coin.

Mark's face comes closer. He's now leaning with his arms crossed against the bed as if trying to look over Johnny's shoulder, one little mole on his cheek, one little mole on his neck, a few acne scars sprinkled over his skin. He smells like aftershave and soap.

And when their lips meet this time, Johnny doesn't know who initiates it or if they both do it simultaneously. It seems like an inevitable ending to the prolonged stare that they share. Mark's mouth tastes like a lollipop and it makes Johnny feel dizzy, and then he's thinking about how there's nobody home for the next two hours, as he lets his hand slip up Mark's neck.

Mark is ticklish and he immediately shudders and squirms once touched. It's almost scary how well Johnny knows that, how it happens so fast that Mark doesn't even have the time to pretend to rebel. Johnny sitting on the floor, Mark lying on his belly up on the bed, between them the maths coursebook that soon falls to the floor. Mark whimpers into Johnny's mouth when the latter tugs at his hair, and the sound makes Johnny's cock stiffen. Without breaking the kiss, he moves up from the floor, both hands holding Mark's head. He changes their position so that now they're both sitting on Johnny's bed.

The moment they look each other in the face, some new understanding shines in Mark's pupils, a comprehension of what all this may be leading up to and at the same time a total lack of control, like part of him is absent from the situation, his eyes darkening under Johnny's gaze.

The boundary has already been crossed.

"I really shouldn't have done that," Johnny tries nevertheless. What he means is he shouldn't have allowed the kiss to happen, but the only effect his words and the raspy voice in which he says them have on Mark is making him shiver and suck in a breath, arousal filling his face. Johnny has never seen him look this way.

Mark's eyes move from Johnny's face down to his sweatpants where he can clearly make out the outline of Johnny's cock. It doesn't seem like a fully conscious decision, more like Mark's eighteen year old body making moves of its own, driven by the need of intimacy and pleasure, when he surges forward and straddles Johnny, bringing their dicks together.

This is totally happening. They are both hard.

"Fuck. Mark."

Mark gives a chuckle in response, which combines amusement, arousal, embarrassment and fear, all too much in just a single sound, completely overwhelming Johnny. Something clicks into place. When Mark starts grinding against Johnny's crotch, short, chaotic and desperate little moves, Johnny has to grip with his hands on either side of the younger man's hips, like he can barely keep up with him. It goes on for a moment and then it's still not enough and Mark's already looking for more. His shaky hands reach to Johnny's sweatpants and soon Johnny's cock springs out of his underwear.

"I guess now it's my turn," he mumbles, half-coherent, his voice as if on the verge of giggling but at the same time mindlessly moaning, speaking more to himself than to Johnny. Johnny can sense Mark's heartbeat racing, like it's sending seismic waves through the bedroom.

Mark's cock is proportional to the rest of his body, or so Johnny wants to think, small and delicate in a perverse way, the colour of Mark's lips and flushed ears. Somehow subconsciously, Johnny knows that now is the time for him to make a move and so he starts jerking them off, holding them both in one hand. The touch of his fingers on Mark's cock make the younger man release a lewd, helpless whine which Johnny suspects he would never admit to having produced nor has ever imagined being capable of. And after the first whine the blockage he had in his mind breaks. He keeps on making noise, those ragged breaths, whimpers and moans, right into Johnny's ear, most probably not fully conscious of what is coming out of his mouth. The idea makes Johnny feel twice as aroused as he would be otherwise. And the feeling of being entrusted the control, shown this side of Mark.

Mark has his arms around Johnny's neck. His eyes are squeezed shut, his whole body moves in rhythm to the strokes of Johnny's hand, and they don't last long, coming almost at the same time and dirtying their clothes as well as Johnny's bed sheets.

It doesn't happen just once.

It's two months before Mark's final exams and Johnny doesn't want to address the issue yet, if it could mean making all more stressful for Mark. Instead, when Mark comes to his bedroom at night and slips under his duvet, their parents sleeping just two rooms away, Johnny lets it happen. It's only jerking off, they never go further than that. Mark is loud and Johnny silences him through kisses or by pressing his hand against Mark's mouth. Mark's head is on Johnny's pillow and Johnny sits on top of him, rubbing them together through their pyjama bottoms.

The other time, it's a weekend and their parents aren't home. Mark appears in Johnny's bedroom, as the latter is flipping through job offers. He starts kissing Johnny's neck, and when Johnny tries to shoo him away, Mark sits astride on his lap, hard inside his tight blue jeans. Johnny says, "Mark. This is getting out of hand," and Mark goes, "Were you busy? Did I disturb your work?" It sounds dirty in Johnny's ears and even though he tries not to react to it, his body is set on fire. And Mark can feel it. He says, "I'm really sorry," and he's not. He gets himself off grinding against Johnny's crotch.

Urged by Lucas's constant questions and reminders thrown into the middle of their every conversation and cutting halfway through their every kiss, Mark agrees to visit his family house.

"I'm sure you'll feel better when you meet with them," Lucas says, kneeling beside Mark on the sofa, already buttoning his elegant violet shirt, necktie hanging undone around his neck. "I can see it's been eating you from the inside ever since we met your brother."

Mark's looking at his phone, now with Lucas's bigger frame throwing shade on top of him.

"Come on, baby. Look at me." And so Mark shifts his eyes up towards Lucas, his lips opening and jaw moving as if he was chewing on a gum, the expression of irritation that he usually adapts, which always amuses Lucas. "That's much better." Lucas smiles to himself, doing last two buttons with his big fingers, big as everything else about him. His big heart of a family guy. "It's been years since that happened. I'm sure it sucks to have your life taken away from you and put into someone else's house, but now you're twenty three. You go there, make up with your mum and then we come back home. Easy."

The moment he leans in a bit closer, Mark uses the opportunity to intertwine his hands behind Lucas's neck and press a kiss on his lips. "I'm just really nervous," he whispers when their lips part, and his fingers move to tuck a strand of Lucas's hair behind his ear.

"I know that."

And so the first couple of minutes are just as Mark has imagined them to be. Standing in front of the house with the door opening and Mark's mother scrutinising the two of them without saying a word. Mark's immediate impulse is to evacuate, and perhaps he would do just that, if it wasn't for Lucas's hand squeezing his own, encouragingly.

Everything about the house is just as Mark remembers it. The walls have the same colours, only faded, same decorations are standing on the tables. Even the ceramic pot, under which Johnny used to put Mark's key whenever he forgot it, is still located by the front door, now without a plant inside of it.

He remains seized by panic as they walk in and Lucas proceeds to introduce himself, his name, their relationship, the fact that they've been living together for the past three years. She kisses Lucas's cheeks and runs her fingers through his hairsprayed dark brown hair, saying how happy she is there's someone to take care of her son. She leads them to the living room and sits by Lucas's side, holding his one big hand in her two small ones, Lucas's face almost shining from afar with his bright smile. She doesn't look at Mark at first. Perhaps she wants to keep him feeling guilty for a while. When he asks about Johnny's dad, she replies that he isn't home yet but they have another guest.

When Johnny emerges from the kitchen, Mark's heart immediately drops in his chest.

The three of them remain in the living room as Mark's mum leaves to prepare something to drink. Lucas and Mark are on the sofa, Johnny on the armchair opposite to them. He's wearing a shirt just like Lucas, his legs crossed at the knee.

"You did something I couldn't do for four years," Johnny says, in a joking voice. Lucas laughs at it and Mark doesn't. "It's a miracle. Up until now the arsehole only sent us Christmas cards. That's how we knew he wasn't dead yet."

Lucas's hand lands softly against Mark's thigh, covering almost all of it, another one of his reassuring gestures which now Mark wishes he could stop making. "It's all thanks to you, man. If we hadn't met you, maybe we wouldn't be here now."

Johnny gives it a chuckle, in which Mark can detect regret because he knows all types of Johnny's chuckles. The uneasiness returns to him in full force.

"Maybe you don't know that," Lucas continues, speaking to Johnny almost as if Mark wasn't there, "but Mark doesn't really like talking about himself that much. And I felt like I had to find a new way to learn about him."

"Ask me anything," Johnny jokes yet again. "Maybe it doesn't seem like it, but we were pretty close when we were younger. I used to cover his teenage arse on a daily basis."

They both laugh and the look that passes between them, the sense of mutual understanding, it makes Mark feel dizzy. He stirs when his mother's voice comes from the kitchen, asking what they want to drink, a rustle of biscuit packages and a quiet radio music accompanying her. She directs her words to Johnny and Lucas only, purposely refusing to mention her son's name.

"She's still mad at Mark," Johnny goes then, his voice lowered, clearly assuming it's not something Mark would ever tell Lucas himself. He may be thinking that, in a way, he's doing Mark a favour. "Right after graduation and getting his high school diploma, he packed his things and without telling anybody ran away. He didn't take anyone's calls and we didn't know where he was. Only a few months later he sent a message to say that everything was fine."

Mark feels himself grow more and more nervous, knowing just how much Lucas adores his own family and how seriously he approaches the subject. But Lucas's hand stays firm on Mark's thigh.

"Did you just assume that I was this dumb I would die if I spent some time on my own?" Mark snaps then.

Johnny's eyes finally redirect themselves onto his stepbrother. There are sparkles of irritation in them, as if Mark has gone against some pre-made plan which assumes that it was Johnny's role to lead the whole conversation. "You always thought only about yourself. A single child through and through. That's why nothing could stop you from leaving."

"And you're surprised I made this decision?"

Hearing Mark's voice change, get closer to bursting out, Lucas breaks in. His hand applies pressure onto his boyfriend's thigh. "Easy, Mark."

After the family dinner with Johnny's father present as well, Mark's mother sends both of them to the kitchen so she can calmly have a talk with Lucas. And it's the first time in four years that Mark's alone with his stepbrother.

He's washing the dishes while wearing his mother's gloves, their hands the same small size, and Johnny brings the last dirty bowl and puts it by the sink before leaning against the kitchen unit and crossing his arms.

"Wong Lucas. What a hot cookie," he comments, as if absent-mindedly. "And he cares about you too. Another person to care about your ungrateful arse."

Mark keeps cleaning the dishes. "You have some nerve showing up here today."

At that, Johnny laughs discordantly. It's such a different sounds from all the other laughs Mark used to get while making stupid jokes and watching for Johnny's reaction. Something heavy stirs inside of him. "The prodigal son returns home and all of a sudden I'm supposed to disappear?"

"Aren't you a bit too old to be still living with your parents?"

"Maybe I just care about them as they're growing old? But of course, you wouldn't fucking know that because you weren't there."

Swept away by a sudden wave of bitterness, Mark quickly turns to Johnny, propping his both hands against the sink as the water keeps running behind his back. "Seriously, fuck you."

One quick move, Johnny unwinds his arms and turns the water off. "You've always been the master of leading discussions. Just so mature of you, Mark Lee."

"I've never fucking wanted to have my life taken away from me in order to move into your stupid house and play your stupid brother while you were stealing my mother."

"Of course, thinking about yourself as usual." Johnny presses one hand against the sink, bringing their faces closer. His sleeves are rolled up and Mark can note how the older man's whole body tenses for the upcoming confrontation. "As if I fucking wanted a little shit like you to stress my father all the time and to babysit at school because you didn't want to talk to any of your classmates. You never took your lunch with you, you didn't have anyone to take notes from. My friends were making fun of me because you wouldn't leave me alone for a goddamned second."

"I did not want to move out and change schools," Mark spits out under his breath, in a weak attempt of defending himself. More like he was defending himself from his own sense of guilt, than from Johnny's arguments.

"I know that and I'm fucking sorry about it! What else am I supposed to tell you?"

Mark clamps his mouth shut. For a moment they're only looking at each other's faces without saying anything, their bodies quickly drawing in shuddery breaths. Apart from the steady sound of the conversation being led on the other side of the wall, entwined with jovial peals of laughter, Mark can't focus on anything but the veins pulsing on Johnny's neck.

"Mark." As if on his command, Mark looks up to Johnny's eyes. "Is it because...?"

Mark stubbornly shakes his head no. "We don't talk about it."

"Do you still...?" he trails off. He watches Mark's facial expression, for a few moments, and only then, instead of finishing the question, as if impelled by something he sees in Mark and unable to fight the sudden urge, he leaps forward. He pushes Mark against the sink and grips on Mark's chin which feels different than it used to, and perhaps Mark's whole body feels different, has a different weight and strength, different soft spots, and Mark's mouth tastes different too as he forces a kiss onto it. Mark's arms move as if he was about to push Johnny away, forcefully press against his chest and break himself free, but instead they end up clutching at Johnny's shirt to bring him closer. Blood speeds up in Johnny's veins.

Knowing that now Mark won't try to escape, he allows his fingers to take a trip over the younger man's face, feeling its contours and hollows, tracing those stunning cheekbones, even more prominent than they used to be, caressing his little moles and the little patch of stubble that he didn't notice when shaving. Mark's breath hitches at the unexpected delicacy of Johnny's hands and he involuntarily moans into his stepbrother's mouth. The moment it happens, Johnny pulls away from him.

"Fuck."

He takes three steps away, lifting his both arms and running hands through his hair, rubbing his forehead and then stopping to cover his mouth. Mark doesn't budge. He stays by the sink with his lips parted, staring at one fixed point on the floor, unable to even out his breathing. Only after a longer while of the most uncomfortable silence he's ever experienced, he turns to the sink saying, "I need to finish the dishes."

Johnny walks out to the bathroom as he turns on the water.

They stay overnight because Mark's mother wants to have another dinner with Lucas and Lucas isn't able to reject the offer.

They sleep in Mark's old bedroom, now repurposed into a guest room. Mark's lying in his old pyjamas because he hasn't gotten that much bigger since his twelfth grade, and Lucas comes in wearing Johnny's. When he closes the door and turns off the lights, the bedroom is enshrouded in darkness.

"It's really nice of him," Lucas comments, meaning Johnny lending him the pyjamas. Without seeing much, he climbs on top of the bed to snuggle under the duvet right by Mark's side. Mark tries not to think of it too much. With his eyes fixed on the wall opposite to the bed, he feels like he's come back in time, like he's ten again, sleeping in a new bedroom in a new house, not knowing yet where his new school is and if he's going to have anyone to talk to during his first day of classes. He's scared.

"How are you feeling?" asks Lucas's voice in the darkness beside Mark's head. Even though he can't see it, Mark knows that Lucas is staring at him expectantly.

"Weird."

"I'm really proud of you," comes Lucas's soft voice. His face is approaching Mark's, calculating the trajectory of a kiss. Mark forgets to breathe for a second. "You talked to her and she was really happy. I could see it."

Mark wants to respond to that, but something is stuck in his throat and he can't even get a breath out of his mouth. It feels like one of the nightmares he had during the first days at the new house. He couldn't come talk to his mother because of the stranger, his stepfather, sleeping with her. Instead, he would go to Johnny's bedroom. Johnny would always comfort him. Lighting up the lamp on his desk, he would tell him stories to make him go to sleep.

"I think," Lucas's voice cuts through his memories, "That you need to apologise to her. Officially. Come up tomorrow and say how you feel. How you felt. You can't change the past but knowing the truth about one's feelings is much more comforting than not knowing anything."

Mark swallows with difficulty. There's a pause.

"Babe." Lucas's warm breath smelling of toothpaste crushes against the skin of Mark's face. "Are you crying?"

Johnny is woken up by the door of his bedroom being opened and a sequence of light, small steps against the floor boards which he immediately recognises. It's just like in the past. The door is closed with a quiet click, the figure approaches his bed and perches itself at the edge. Johnny sits up, then freezes. The electronic clock shows the time to be four am. After a longer pause in the complete silence of his bedroom, Johnny's eyes adapt to the darkness and make out the edges of Mark's face and body.

"What are you doing?" he asks Mark under his breath, part of him unsure if this isn't a dream, if maybe he's just imagining Mark to be there, sitting patiently yet nervously like he's expecting a bedtime story to be told. At the same time he's instantly aware that he must not make noise not to inform anyone about Mark's presence. Over the years, he's grown so used to being conspiratorially quiet.

"Johnny," comes the younger man's voice. It sounds broken, faltering and piteous. "I'm really sorry," he confesses.

Johnny rubs his eyes with his both hands. "You came here just to tell me that?"

"We're leaving tomorrow," Mark responds, matter-of-factly. He means himself and his boyfriend Lucas. "Maybe I won't have another chance to tell you that."

Johnny moves his legs from under his duvet and drops them to the floor. He lights up the bedside lamp. "Mark, listen. I didn't mean... everything that I told you today."

"Really?" In the faint light cast by the lamp, Mark looks even smaller and more vulnerable than usually.

"I didn't mind... taking care of you. At school. And at home." Overwhelmed by a sudden guilt but also feeling hurt by Mark's past decisions, he adds, "I mean, you were an awful brat, don't get me wrong. But I didn't mind... dealing with it."

The prolonged silence from Mark's side makes Johnny regret saying the words. Then, Mark moves closer. The warmth of his body invades Johnny's private space. "I just had to leave home."

"Is it because of what I did?" Mark sniggers and is surely about to disagree, perhaps say something expressly to get under Johnny's skin, like he always does it, this ungrateful little shit, but Johnny cuts him short. "It's my fault," he blurts out, barely thinking about it.

By the time he pronounces the last word, Mark's lips are on his lips and then they're kissing. Mark climbs on top of him and lets his hands wander all over Johnny's body at last. He measures it as if comparing to what he remembers of it, touches his muscles, bigger and rougher than they used to be, runs fingers down the man's tensed back. When Johnny touches him back, it prompts a desperate gasp to escape Mark's lips. Their movements are in slow motion; Johnny takes hold of Mark's wrists and makes him lie flat against the bed, Mark's innocent eyes looking up at him through the eyelashes and watching him do so with no resistance. Through the sound of blood rushing in his veins, blood rushing down to his groin, making the whole world grow blurry and distant, Johnny tries to keep track of how much noise they're both making. He slides Mark's pyjama bottoms down his skinny legs, then he does the same with his underwear, dropping it to the floor. When his hands proceed to caress Mark's thighs, Mark makes the biggest effort not to let out a whine, biting down onto his lower lip.

There's no sound in any other part of the house. The electronic clock is ticking quietly.

Before sliding his fingers into Mark, he closes the younger man's mouth with a kiss. With his free hand, he traces Mark's nipples and wanders through his prominent ribs down to his hollow stomach. Mark clenches around him repeatedly, his thighs tensing. It can't last for too long and they're both aware of it as Johnny directs his cock to Mark's entrance. At the same time, he presses a hand against Mark's mouth, the same way he did it in the past, muffling all of his noises. Under his fingertips, he can sense the way Mark's jaw tightens and how he swallows, how quick his breathing is and just how fast he's going to come, already on the verge and about to burst out.

"Just look at you," Johnny breathes out, his gaze fixed on Mark's big eyes, clouded and yet shining wet, and at his own hand keeping him quiet. He's holding Mark in place with his whole body weight and Mark doesn't even budge in protest. "You're so good."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know how sequels are. Unnecessary. And lower quality.  
But since I started it, then I also finished, only it took me much longer than I had anticipated. Wrote half of the chapter, then began from scratch, then had another break. Anyway, that's for those who wanted a continuation; sorry for the delay.  
Also, just to be clear, I still feel very iffy about this whole story.

It's a few weeks later that Mark gets back from work to the sight of Lucas seated at the kitchen table, motionless with his elbow propped against its surface, hand holding his chin in a way that covers half of his lips.

As Mark places the two shopping bags on top of the table, Lucas doesn't budge and nothing in his position changes, as though his body has been frozen to the spot, a lifeless silhouette carved out of marble. He lifts his eyes at Mark only after a while, not in a greeting manner but rather expectantly. Or so it seems to Mark.

Lately, he's been catching himself feeling like Lucas was waiting for something. Something seemed to be ticking at the back of Mark's head.

Perhaps it's only a paranoid impression that passes through Mark's mind every so often, each time making his heart drop and his breath catch in his throat. Now and then, without any particular reason, the air grows thick and time comes to a half: Lucas's body stops moving, those ridiculously long arms go limp, plump lips that usually talk to no end don't let out a word, and he's only staring into Mark's eyes, as though he's staring right through him, inside of him.

It makes Mark feel like a specimen of a butterfly, pricked and pinned under glass yet still helplessly revolving around the needle, wings fluttering last couple of times.

It's because just as much as he wants to free himself of the burden and let Lucas know everything about him, know him to the smallest detail of his childhood, fair and square, he's also aware that there is a secret that nobody is supposed to know about. His and Johnny's secret.

It's in the past. Not going to happen again.

"So," Mark starts, a bit awkwardly clearing his throat. He's standing with his bottom against the kitchen unit, having just received Lucas's full attention. As Lucas's hair is tucked behind his ears, the ears themselves look bigger, seemingly living the lives of their own. Mark's favourite spot for planting kisses. He takes a glance at the clock. "When is Elkie coming?"

And only then the time laps back to its normal speed. The perfect opportunity for a confession passes by ignored by Mark.

Lucas's expression changes at the sound of his sister's name. "In just a sec." Smiling, he lifts himself from his chair to come over to Mark and plant a greeting kiss on his cheek. Mark stirs at the touch but Lucas doesn't take notice. The smile on his face is now involving two rows of his perfectly white teeth and only seems to be gaining in size. "There's something we both need to talk to you about."

Mark coughs. "Talk to me about?"

"It's a secret. Just wait for her to come."

And so Mark takes a seat at the table, right beside the shopping bags he's just carried in and which he now doesn't seem to be able to unpack. So Lucas does it instead of him. Picking out the products and opening the cabinets, he talks to Mark about how much he can't wait to see his sister. Elkie is his sister. Mark knows all the childhood stories about her and Lucas.

One time, standing by the cooker, only a pair of briefs covering his sun-kissed body and his hands moving the spatula over the frying pan in rhythm to the radio music, Lucas explained to Mark that it's his sisters he owes his cooking skills to. "They've always forced me to play grown-ups with them," he said. "Our folks were out and I was stuck with the two of them. You know, they needed a guy to play the husband. We stayed in the kitchen and pretended to prepare dinner." He made an annoyed face, Mark remembers, but his voice indicated the opposite: it was a fond memory he nurtured.

Lucas empties both shopping bags and places three wine glasses on the table, beside the bottle. The door bell rings and Mark glances at the watch, again, feeling unstuck in time. They greet: Elkie kisses Mark on his both cheeks, then Lucas stoops so she can kiss him too. In the kitchen, she takes off her winter jacket and cracks a joke, which Mark doesn't register, half of his mind busy doing what it always does, comparing the meeting between the two siblings to his own experience. To himself and Johnny.

"So this is our great idea," Elkie's voice cuts through Mark's thoughts, and it sounds like she's continuing a longer monologue that Mark's mind blanked on. "We want to invite you and your family for Christmas."

Mark coughs. Again. He doesn't understand and his confused reaction seems to greatly amuse Lucas, who puts his wine glass down to say, "We've already discussed the technicalities with our parents."

"They would love to have more guests," Elkie adds. "Their policy is: the more people at Christmas, the merrier."

"I don't think it's a good idea."

Lucas corrects him, "It's a great idea."

His eyes now directed point blank at Lucas, Mark goes, "What's so great about it?"

For a second, Lucas grows serious. It's funny how sometimes you can see everything that's going on in Lucas's head like he's a book to read off of. "Babe, listen." Mark's gaze runs towards Elkie; he's searching for help. "Your mum feels sorry about how she went about the marriage. She said she's ashamed by the fact that she didn't gain enough of your trust for you to come out to her. And she's missed you those four years. She's told you all that." Mark's eyebrows drop. He wants to retort but Lucas doesn't let him. "I think she deserves a family Christmas now that you're back."

Elkie cuts in, once again silencing Mark the moment he opens his mouth. "Everyone wants you to be here for Christmas. So you have to invite them too."

"And your brother," Lucas adds. "You can't leave him alone for Christmas."

"What?"

Lucas rolls his eyes. "Johnny. Remember? You have a brother."

Elkie's hand, the one that isn't holding a wine glass, clutches on Mark's arm reassuringly. "Mark, I get it. Sibling rivalry is a real thing. I've lived with Lucas my whole life so I experienced it first hand. It's a lie when parents say they don't have their favourite child."

Mark goes, "That's not what I'm saying."

"For example, our mum always preferred Lucas over me and Fei."

Lucas shakes his head. "Not true."

"She went mad-worried whenever you had a runny nose, you little bitch." Lucas sniggers, then laughs. Elkie turns back to Mark, "So I get what's the deal with you and Johnny. He was your older and cooler step brother and your mum totally preferred him over you because he was more responsible."

Lucas clears his throat. "Elkie. Don't say that."

She shushes him. Her hand still on Mark's arm, it moves up towards his shoulder as she leans in, trapping him with her piercing gaze. "Mark. You gotta get over it. You're adults now. Everything's different. Time changes people." There's a short pause, in which Mark realises he's stopped breathing. Elkie smiles and adds, "And also I totally want to meet Johnny."

Lucas, now sitting with his arms crossed and propped against the table, in a way mirroring how his sister is blocking Mark's possibility of escape, he goes, "Is it because you have no plus one for this Christmas?"

One of the earliest memories Mark has from the time he and his mother moved into the two-floor, single-family house owned by Johnny's father was the first impression upon entering it. The feeling of being small and everything around him being overwhelmingly huge.

Like the houses of Mark's old classmates, the Seo house had a wooden staircase, a dining table for eight people and the kind of vast and shiny kitchen counters Mark's mother used to admire in the furniture catalogues. There were two basins in the each of the two bathrooms, inside of them both a bathtub and a shower cabin to choose from. There was a built in alcohol cabinet containing all of Mr Seo's whisky bottles that years later Johnny would sneak out for the school parties and Mr Seo wouldn't even notice. There were two sofas in the living room and an armchair by the fireplace, which Johnny claimed to be his own and Mark would always respond that there wasn't Johnny's name written on it. Until Johnny actually wrote it. With a permanent marker.

And Mark remembers walking around those corridors for the first time, his hands clutching his mother's skirt and the tights on her legs. They walked into what was Mark's new bedroom and where all of his toys have already been carried in, packed into paper boxes, all of his toy cars and books, plastic blocks for building roads and bridges. Looking at it all, his new desk, bed, wardrobe, Mark's first question was, "Mum. Can we go back home now?"

Later in the evening, the same day, they were seated at the dining table and Mark's feet could not reach the wooden floor from his chair. He was looking at Johnny across the table, this older boy who talked with the adults and knew what to say, and he couldn't believe that the boy wasn't as angry as he was. When the silence fell and everybody was looking at Mark and Mark had no idea what question he was being asked, he went, "Mum. What about now? Can we go back home?" And he remembers the way everyone dropped their eyes to the table.

Fast forward two weeks, to the first day of the new school year, both of them in the bathroom getting ready to go. Johnny's standing before his basin, Mark before the one next to it, feet on a bathroom step stool so in the mirror they seem to be the same height. Mark's wearing his new school uniform, stiff and heavy on his body, a bit too loose around the waist and with too long sleeves. Rinsing his mouth, he notices the way Johnny's looking at him in the mirror.

"Mark," Johnny addresses Mark's reflection in the mirror, his one hand leaning against the basin and the other reaching towards Mark to pat him on the shoulder, a gesture of cheering another boy. "It'll be okay. I'll show you around the school."

And so first introduced into the new world as Johnny's younger brother, he would remain exactly that for the rest of his school years. Each time he would talk to someone new, midway through the handshake or somewhere during the conversation, the person would have a sudden realisation and go, "Are you Johnny's step brother? Johnny Seo?" And then Mark would let out a chuckle, half proud, half disappointed.

He would repeatedly stumble upon Johnny somewhere in the school corridors. See him out of the corner of his eye. Unlike primary school, in secondary school the two years of an age gap would separate them miles away. Johnny would walk down the stairs surrounded by his friends, his cool guy's brown hair parted in the middle, neck-long so that the teachers would repeatedly ask him to cut it. His school uniform loose, last three buttons of the shirt undone, he would walk down the stairs and, to Mark, it would look like a scene out of a film, like there was some rock music playing in the background.

In secondary school, being Johnny's brother meant being the younger, less entertaining brother. It meant receiving a lot of questions from the girls of Mark's age and older about Johnny and whether or not he was dating someone at the moment.

And when Mark was in the eight grade, the thing happened. Johnny had a girlfriend. Looking at Johnny over his bowl of cereal, Mark would listen to his mother ask questions about her at at the breakfast table.

"When will you introduce her, young man?" she would ask, in the voice she used when speaking to Johnny, specifically tailored for the addressee. In the hierarchy of importance, even he seemed to exceed Mark. His mother loved Johnny. "You could invite her for dinner."

Johnny chuckles, hand holding the spoon and moving it in the air to emphasise his words. "I'm not getting married." The spoon moves to point at Mark. Johnny's eyes follow. "Plus somebody here would be jealous. Mark? Have you got a girlfriend to invite home?" Mark feels his whole face grow red and he can't exactly pinpoint why. "You're always out. You must be seeing somebody."

Mark doesn't respond.

And when she does come over, Johnny's girlfriend, Mark listens to them talk from the corridor. They sit on Johnny's bed and Johnny has his hand around her waist. He sounds like he thinks through every single word he pronounces. Johnny has that ability, Mark always notices it, of knowing how to read other people. Johnny never makes anyone uncomfortable. And it's not his fault that Mark's so damn angry and embarrassed and confused, and acts like a petulant child.

A few months later she's gone but the feelings remain.

Somehow, along the way, Mark figures out that the only means of gaining Johnny's attention, having it all for himself, now that they're older and there's no reason for Johnny to spend time with Mark, is to cause trouble. When Johnny's father is upset, so is Johnny. And upset Mr Seo means Johnny keeps his eye on Mark.

A night like many others, opening the front door but not yet letting Mark come in, blocking the way when Mark tries to slip by, he goes, "Where have you been?" And even if the answer is simple, Mark makes it the opposite. He refuses to say a word. He tries to push his way inside and Johnny slaps him on the arm before grabbing it. Johnny says, "Next time, you're not going anywhere. Is that clear?" and it sounds like a challenge.

It makes Mark want to take a step further each time and do things just to gain that certain look in Johnny's eyes, see the annoyed sparkles that speed up Mark's breathing. To hear how Johnny's voice grows serious, since in the spectacle of giving Mark a scolding he unconsciously assumes the role of his own father. Without knowing that this exact scene will be replayed in Mark's sixteen-year-old head when he'll come in his own hand, third time in a row, masturbating under the sheets instead of sleeping.

Snap forward to when Mark was nineteen and one week after the graduation ceremony he packed most of his belongings into one suitcase before leaving the house.

He was nineteen and he had never been in a relationship to hold someone's hand while crossing the school corridors or be introduced to their parents. Nor had he had a crush on anyone in his class. Neither were there any drunk kisses happening at the numerous parties he attended.

So the first thing he does finally living on his own, having snatched a job as a barman one street away from his shared flat, is looking for sexual experiences. Maybe it makes him pathetic but what he really wants, now that he has nobody close around him to monitor his actions, is to have sex with someone he doesn't particularly care for. Whose name he won't remember the day after.

The clubs he goes to on a few occasions feel like a familiar environment at first, reminiscent of the times he got invited to his classmates' house parties. Only then he realises he doesn't know how to make the first step.

So it's made by someone else.

His first time, Mark won't remember the guy's name and he doesn't ask for it.

They leave for a motel across the street because the guy promises to pay. Flash forward into the motel room, Mark lying on top of the bed, his shirt already scattered on the floor, right by the door. He's nervous at first but the fact that he doesn't need to take any actions, only respond to them, makes the whole process much easier. As he closes his eyes at the touch of foreign hands, allowing the stranger to take the lead, kissing his way down Mark's neck, chest, belly, the unbidden images begin to flood his mind, slowly at first, then speeding up. They are the details of Johnny's face, which he can't get rid of, the curves of his body and the texture of his skin, like a tumour grown into the depth of Mark's skull, pulsating at the back of Mark's head. He flutters open his eyes and stares at the ceiling. As long as he can't see the stranger, who's now proceeding to unzip Mark's trousers and slip them down his legs, he realises that it's as though Johnny was right here, together with him in some weird subconscious way. And he wants for the impression to last.

Fingers travelling under the waistband of Mark's underwear, the guy notices how distant Mark grows, completely frozen on top of the bed. He asks if Mark's a virgin and Mark says no, even though it's the first time he's going to have anal sex. The guy asks if there's something wrong then.

Mark rolls his lower lip between his teeth, then lets out a breathless laugh. "You just, sort of, remind me of someone else."

The guy smiles like it's a funny thing to know, and continues to slowly pull Mark's cock out of his underwear. "An ex?" he asks and Mark nods his head; there's no need to go into detail because they aren't going to meet again. Mark's not going to ask for his phone number, and if the guy asks him, he's going to smile playfully and slip out of the room, into the motel bathroom where in front of the mirror the smile will turn wry.

He splashes water onto his face, then props his wet hands on the sink. The guy knocks on the door to ask if maybe Mark wants some help washing himself. It's a joke so Mark laughs and says no.

It goes on like this for a whole year: whoever Mark meets with, he unconsciously searches for the common points. One of men has a voice like Johnny; it's firm but soft and Mark likes listening to it with his eyes closed. Another one has the same shape of his chin and jaw, which isn't even that handsome and maybe Johnny's chin and jaw didn't look handsome either, but it was him and Mark never questioned it. When he thinks of it now, never in his life has he actually considered Johnny's overall looks, never judged what he liked about them and what he didn't. Maybe Johnny wasn't the most attractive type to begin with but the fact that he was Johnny, not somebody else, sufficed.

The guy that stares at Mark in the subway and follows him out to the station before disappearing in the crowd. A barman, Mark's co-worker, who sometimes talks to Mark about his girlfriend's hot sister. Mark's flatmate who wakes up early and comes back late. If Mark squints his eyes and looks at them from the right angle, they all have something that makes him think of Johnny.

It takes a whole year. Only then something changes.

Night shift, Mark wiping the bar, wearing his usual work outfit consisting of a see-through shirt made of black mesh. Enter Lucas. With Lucas, everything is in the right place: long legs, sculptured arms, bright smile, all the elements coming together in the form of a hot stranger seated at the bar, as if the ocean washed him to the shore Venus-style, with the winds ruffling the hairsprayed head of his brown hair. The way he looks at Mark, right into Mark, eyes big, shining, dark as coal, Mark suspects he's one of the guys for a certain one night stand.

When he asks for his order, the man laughs first, booming laughter. Attractive. He goes, "Aren't you like a bit too young to be working here?"

And Mark pauses. He leans against the bar, his senses focusing, all on Lucas, as he's searching for a sign, for the common points. Maybe there's a crinkle under his eyes like Johnny's, or maybe he'll make a gesture that's reminiscent of the man. "If it's an actual joke, then it's not funny. If it's your attempt at a pick up line, then I appreciate the efforts."

A chuckle. Charming. "I can do better. It's just that even when I don't try whatsoever, guys still fall into my arms." Having said the words, he laughs again, now as though realising how stupid he sounds. "I'm just joking. One cola with whisky, please."

Pouring the drink in, playing the role of a barman to whom you can confess the secrets of your life as long as you tip, Mark goes, "You make it sound like it annoys you."

"It's because I usually look for guys in bars like this one. Which is stupid. I can tell you from experience, they don't last long enough to spend the Christmas break with. The guys, I mean."

Mark sets the glass in front of Lucas but Lucas doesn't even look at it, his eyes fixated somewhere around Mark's lips. "That's your better try? Acting out a romantic family guy?"

The man makes a clicking sound with his tongue, like he's offended by the accusation. "No lies, just truth." Leaning forward, he looks at the name tag on Mark's see-through shirt where his nipples are visible between the black roses and peonies. "Mark," he reads. "I'm Lucas. Nice to meet you, Mark." When he lifts his glass, Mark notices the silver watch on the man's wrist. "Tell me something about yourself?"

At first, Mark only rolls his eyes. Then, he thinks it through. "I finish in three hours," he announces and it's a perfectly clear message.

The man's big eyebrows move up and down his forehead, in a momentary surprise, before he laughs for the last time this conversation. There is some awkwardness to the sound, like he's embarrassed by Mark's proposition, even though he's the one to hit on him first. He stirs the ice cubes in his drink, saying, "That's not what I meant but I take it."

The view of Johnny stepping out of the car, from the driver's seat, a fur coat around his neck, hair immediately dishevelled by the winter winds, it has Mark feeling nauseated. Johnny shuts the door closed and leans with his both arms against the roof of the car. First snow flakes, slowly eddying down off the sky, land on the man's dark brown hair, and his cheeks grow reddish with cold.

Only then, from behind the wall of complete silence and motionlessness, the reality reaches back to Mark.

His mother comes over to squeeze him with her both small arms. She holds him by his shoulders and looks him in the face, and her eyes are shining with excitement. She puts her cold, bony hands on Mark's cheeks. "Aren't you looking good, baby?"

Mark locates himself within the present moment.

The whole scene unfolds itself on the snow-capped driveway where the colourful lights outline the contours of the house, in the span of just a couple minutes. Lucas introduces his parents to Mark's. He hugs Johnny and then Johnny hugs his sisters. Lucas says something funny and Johnny pats him on the shoulder approvingly. Elkie kisses Mark's mother and calls Mark a lovely son, which makes her giggle. And then everyone magically disappears, to the house where the rest of the guests are crowded, dogs running between their legs, kids running after the dogs, and the air smelling of gingerbread, cranberries and cinnamon.

They're left alone.

Johnny opens the boot before looking at Mark and saying, "You should have put something on. You'll get cold." He points at Mark's stupid Christmas sweater and then hands him the first suitcase. For a moment it seems like that's all he's going to say, like there's nothing else left for him to voice out, not now, not ever, but then he goes, "Why did you want us to come?"

And it hits Mark like a smack in the face, colder than the December wind. "It was Lucas's idea," he replies.

Johnny doesn't seem to hear. He takes another suitcase and puts it on the driveway. "So I can watch you and Lucas act all lovey-dovey? What's the game you're playing?" There's annoyance and hurt pride in his words, and Mark immediately thinks back to how they were kissing in his bed.

"What do you mean?"

The force with which Johnny hands him the second suitcase makes him take a step back, snow getting inside his slippers. "Let's make it clear. I've come here because of mum. She's going to have the time of her life this Christmas, no question about it." He makes it sound almost like a threat. "Also, you should stop staring at me like this, or else your lovey-dovey boyfriend will get suspicious."

"Shit. Was I?"

Johnny closes the car boot with a bang. He hangs two bags on each of his shoulders and proceeds to carry the suitcases to the door. "About the last time. It didn't happen," he adds, at last, then enters the house, leaving Mark three steps behind.

Every year at a Christmas party of Lucas's parents, sitting on a sofa with two four-year-old kids of Lucas's older sister, both playing on the carpet before his feet, Lucas's figure hovering in the distance, carrying plates and simultaneously holding a conversation with a bunch of old uncles, Mark used to feel calm inside. Caught in the flux of people joking and yelling over the Christmas music, Lucas's sister bringing him biscuits to thank him for taking care of the kids, he felt like he belonged and wasn't just an outsider to the family experience.

But this year, Mark's back to feeling lost in the crowd of Lucas's family members.

It's an impression similar to having pushed the wrong door, stepping into the wrong room. Like when you pat someone on the shoulder and greet them, and the moment they turn around, it's actually someone else. You've made a mistake. You're embarrassed. You don't know if you should say anything or depart in shame. How could you be so convinced in the first place. How could Mark be so convinced that it was all over.

He spends most of the afternoon with his mother, her words registered by his one ear and leaving through the other. He's long lost interest in the stories of her life. He sees how old she's got, how there are white hair strands to be found in her elegant bun. Their sight makes him feel ashamed. She acts so cheerful, trying to cheer Mark up too, and she can't ever understand why it isn't possible. Through the kitchen door, Johnny carries plates with Lucas's sister. In some other reality, a parallel one, a counterfactual scenario, the view would make Mark placid and serene. In that other reality, Johnny would be simply Johnny. Mark wouldn't need to live with the guilt of being the worst son, brother and boyfriend. Triple disappointment.

Late in the evening, with the present packages scattered around the floor and kids screaming from the other room, Mark's sitting at a table with a bottle of whisky. And Lucas. And his sister. And Johnny. Find the odd one out.

"So," Elkie goes, pecking with a fork at the remains of her Christmas pudding. The atmosphere is that of something wonderful having just passed, only Mark doesn't seem to have registered any of it. Like it's confetti left to be swept from the floor. "What's the status of the situation? The whole running away from home thingy?"

Mark doesn't budge to answer. He's leaning against the table, chin in hand, and Johnny instinctively knows that he can take over the question. "Under control," he says.

Elkie makes an attempt at lifting Mark's mood. Fingernails painted green and red, to match her dress, she puts her hand on Mark's shoulder and goes, "Mark, you've been such a naughty boy." She's already drunk half a glass of whisky. Lucas clears his throat.

"I think that's enough for you," he goes, reaching for her glass. Elkie doesn't let him take it, slapping Lucas's hand away, and he quickly complies.

"You know," Johnny interrupts them, "Mark's always caused problems."

"I know." Elkie continues drinking. She's eyeing her brother over the table, her other hand still on Mark's shoulder. "Lucas told me what you told him. Gossip spreads fast among us." She takes the hand away and looks at Johnny, "We've also talked about your plus one. Where is she?" Pause. "Or he?"

Christmas tree's lights are reflected in Johnny's pupils. He's wearing a baggy shirt tucked into his trousers, hair slicked back. It hasn't escaped Elkie's attention, just like the curve of Johnny's jaw.

Lucas hurries with an explanation. "My sister," he tells Johnny, "broke up with her fiancé of five years just a few weeks ago and it's her first Christmas alone. She's looking for someone to share the misery with."

Elkie makes a coughing sound. "That's Lucas right here. He thinks he knows everything about me."

"I know everything about you."

"...and puts words into my mouth when nobody even asks him to speak up. Lucas, I was changing your diapers when you were your little shit self. Don't act so grown-up now."

Johnny cuts in, preventing the discussion to get any more serious. "I'm single too."

"Perfect." She stands up from the table, a bit wobbly, and reaches for Johnny's hand. "Come help me get more whisky."

Mark is still thinking about the way Elkie wrapped her hand around Johnny's arm when they meet again, somewhere before midnight.

It's the time most of the guests have already scattered into the numerous rooms of the Wong residence, and Lucas has left Mark alone before hurrying downstairs to help clean the tables, muted Christmas music still playing in the background. Mark's supposed to hand Johnny the towels and show him the bathroom. That's it. Literally nothing else.

But as soon as they walk into the room and Johnny closes the door behind them, the tension rises in an instant.

Johnny has spent the night drinking and now smells of whisky, his hair no longer slicked back but falling greasy against his forehead. Flashback to the school parties held at his father's house, where everyone seemed to be looking for him, about to talk to him, midway through calling Johnny's name. Flashback to the strangers in dingy bars that looked like Johnny, not much but just enough to catch Mark's attention.

Johnny's voice goes, "Did you get jealous because of Elkie?"

And Mark sniggers, automatically, his ears flushing. "What makes you think so?"

"Because I remember how you got jealous of every girl I brought home?"

"Don't be stupid. I didn't."

They're standing a few feet apart. Mark has his hands in the pockets of his suit bottoms and Johnny's leaning against the door, as if waiting for Mark to ask him to move aside and let him leave. He's amused by Mark's reaction. "What about the time a girl came over to watch a film with me and you spilled toothbrush paste all over the sweater she left in the bathroom?"

"It was an accident."

This time, immediately detecting a lie, Johnny bursts into laughter, which is amplified by the glasses of alcohol he's downed. For a moment it feels almost relaxing; Mark has missed hearing Johnny joke and chuckle, seeing his lips stretched into a sincere smile. But then the impression vanishes, as fast as it appeared in Mark's head. Momentarily taken back to the times when Johnny would crack a joke at the family table, commenting on something stupid their parents did in order to make Mark laugh, he's back to facing an older Johnny, his face crinkled in thought, confused at some sudden realisation that he hasn't yet shared with Mark.

"Now look at me," Johnny says, his voice changed. He sounds tired, all of a sudden. "I'm twenty five and still single. Living with our parents like a goddamned loser. You've said it yourself."

"I was angry saying that. We already had this discussion." He looks Johnny in the face, recognising the familiar signs. "And you're completely drunk," he goes, more to himself than to Johnny.

Johnny shrugs. "I guess I am. Maybe that's why I really want to kiss you right now." There is a pause. Mark's body tenses but no action follows Johnny's words. Which, as Mark soon realises, disappoints him. "I know which present was from you," Johnny changes the subject, his thoughts visibly drifting away from any logical path. "You clearly haven't been updated on my life because I've already got this novel." It sounds like an accusation, but Mark can't seem to fully understand it, can't connect all the dots together. As he's thinking of it, Johnny's eyebrows slowly move down his forehead and in a perfectly honest voice, he asks, "Don't you think it's really shitty what you're doing to me?"

Mark opens his mouth, then closes, hesitating about his response. The guilt he's feeling is now mingled with a weird sense of curiosity that pushes him to ask, "What exactly am I doing?" in a tone of voice that is far from apologetic.

"Your whole big comeback," Johnny blurts out immediately. "You don't talk to me for four years and then get straight into my bed. Without giving me any time to react." He pauses, as if allowing Mark to defend himself, even though Mark isn't going to reply, not at this point, frozen to the spot as he's being called out. "I was doing really fucking fine before you came back. I was doing my best."

In his head, Mark quickly calculates the probability of someone walking in right now, or hearing them talk from the corridor. Cold sweat gushes down his back and it's both uncomfortable and satisfying. He knows he should cut Johnny short but also wants him to keep going. Even if Johnny is angry at him, it still feels better than not talking to him at all.

"You've always been such a damn tease," Johnny continues, not taking his gaze off Mark even for a brief moment. Despite the fog of alcohol, his eyes seem to be piercing through Mark, precise. "Every single time, it was you. Always you getting into my pants." Then a laugh that has nothing to do with amusement.

"You make it sound like you didn't want it."

Johnny ignores Mark's words. "You never even asked if I had someone."

"Do you have someone?"

"No." Pause. "That's just so you, Mark. You come out of nowhere, stir in my life and disappear again, without asking any questions. Like we're still playing tag."

"I've been thinking of you too."

That's when Johnny drops his gaze, proof that he's nervous. "Don't say it." Nevertheless, he pushes himself off the door and comes closer, like he's fighting something inside himself and evidently losing.

An intense feeling presses against Mark’s chest. He takes a step forward as well. "I really didn't do it on purpose, seriously," he says, and the moment the words come out, he no longer remembers what they're referring to and where he wanted to go with them, and neither does Johnny.

It starts off as a hug; coming up close, Mark softly exposes himself to touch and Johnny takes the offer. In slow, almost sluggish movements, his arms enclose Mark's body and pull it closer, Johnny's chin resting delicate on Mark's bony shoulder, his figure stooping to Mark's level. This intimate proximity somehow evens Mark's breathing and he doesn't dare to budge, as if that could break the moment short and bring them both back to the normal state of affairs, to arguing about things that can no longer be changed. Because in the current moment, feeling Johnny's body grow heavier against him as it relies on Mark to keep it standing, fingers tightening on Mark's shirt, their breathing synchronised and somehow no usual sense of rush between them, Mark doesn't want it to stop.

Without any words being spoken, he can sense Johnny's vulnerability, as if for the first time ever not pushing the action forward and telling Mark what to do. Vaguely, Mark remembers how before they ever kissed, even as a child, he enjoyed hugging his step brother. Strong, calming. Hugs to congratulate Mark or to motivate him, hugs goodnight or goodmorning, spontaneous and rushed, or lasting long enough to allow Mark to stop crying. Now it feels like the roles are reversed. Mark's head throbs with memories.

He brings his hand up to touch the very tip of Johnny's hair, then go slightly higher, run it through the man's hair, feel the shape of Johnny's skull. The hug provokes a sense of responsibility in him, which he doesn't think he's had before, not this strong. Then, when he takes the fingers away, his eyes flickering from the top of Johnny's head towards the door he's facing, Johnny moves. His head repositions itself and lips land on Mark's neck. No tongue, just the lips, he leads his way up Mark's Adam's apple, jawline, to finally start the kiss.

And just when Johnny's hands relocate to cup Mark's cheeks, fingertips brushing just so softly against his protruding cheekbones, the door to the guest room opens.

"Your father's asking for you to come," Lucas goes, the moment their kiss rapidly breaks and they step away from one another, Mark's whole face burning hot but the rest of his body feeling unbearably cold, like he was standing there naked, completely exposed to the wind. There's nothing intense in Lucas's voice. Drained of any emotion, arms crossed against his chest, he's standing in the doorway when Johnny passes him by, leaving the room and the two of them inside of it.

Neither he nor Mark say a word following Johnny's departure.

They only broach the subject once they're in their car on the way back home.

Hugs and kisses exchanged on the snowy driveway, the remains of the red lipstick kiss of Lucas's mother still on Mark's cheek, they're driving in silence, except for the Christmas music on the radio, almost ominous to Mark's ears. Then, Lucas's voice breaks through it.

His eyes on the road, he goes, "I guess you're not planning to tell me that it's not what it looked like."

Mark doesn't look at him either, his stare reaching out of the passenger's window. "No, I'm not."

Lucas takes a deep breath in. "I didn't want to talk about it before not to spoil anyone's Christmas. But I can't deny that you've already spoilt mine."

"I'm sorry."

There's a longer pause and Mark can tell that Lucas doesn't want to have this conversation just as much as Mark doesn't. The song on the radio is a choir of retro voices announcing Santa Claus's party with a Christmas tree poking through the sky, calling kids to be good to receive their gifts. "So I saw you kissing your brother," Lucas starts again, unwillingly.

Mark frowns. "A step brother," he prompts. "Technically, we're not blood related."

The voices enumerate the gifts for good kids, with jingle bells tinkling throughout the song. "Is that really important?"

And without a moment's reflection, Mark hears his own voice speak up. "It is important if you think that I'm a complete freak making out with his actual brother. Which he's not. That's why I'm pointing that out." Lucas doesn't reply, the choir of vocalists repeats their chorus and Mark can't stand listening to it, guilt throbbing in his chest and stress making his tongue move quicker. "We first met when I was ten. So it's almost like I met a friend at school."

Lucas clears his throat. "I don't think it is."

Mark closes his eyes, rolling his bottom lip under his teeth. Defeated, his tone changes. "You're right. I'm sorry."

New song, now a man's voice alone is singing about the glistening snow and sleigh bells ringing, and what a beautiful sight it is.

"I'm guessing it's not the first time this happens," Lucas goes, his voice ragged, as if he can barely force the words out of his narrowed throat.

The man's voice sings that we're happy tonight, together before the fireplace. "It's not," Mark admits.

"Did it happen when we were... a couple?

A pause, then Mark's small, "Yes."

It takes even longer for Lucas to follow it up with another question, his voice going lower to the point Mark has difficulty hearing it over the music, only he can understand the words because part of him has expected to hear them. "Did it happen when you were... younger?"

The noticeable shift in the atmosphere pushes against Mark's chest, making him unable to take a breath, struggling to let the air continue its way down his lungs, before letting out a shocked, "What do you mean now?"

He flickers a look at Lucas, anxiously searching his eyes, just in time to catch the wince flashing on Lucas's face, betraying the discomfort he feels by what he's about to say. "I mean, did he touch you when you were underage?"

"What?"

"Mark. Answer the question."

"No. Not when I was underage. Fuck." And with all that already twirling in his head, he can't stop himself from frantically asking, "Are you breaking up with me?"

Lucas turns on the indicator, overtaking a car, then taps with his fingers against the wheel before tightening his grip back to the point of his knuckles growing pale. His response is the exact opposite of what Mark expects to hear. "Should I?" he asks, eyes not steering away from the road.

"You're asking me?"

"What would you do if you were me, Mark? What am I supposed to do? What do you expect me to tell you?"

The way in nightmares you're unable to let out a scream even when your mouth is wide open and your vocal cords hurt, that's how Mark can't seem to say a word.

"You didn't explain shit to me," Lucas goes and only now the nerves he's been previously concealing creep back into his voice, a loud sound of betrayal, confusion and anger. "Take your time, think it through and then come clean to me, Mark. We have nothing to talk about now."

Lucas's long finger traces the edge of his empty glass of whisky.

They've sitting at the bar for good twenty minutes, in perfect silence, neither of them starting a conversation, and Johnny has no idea why he agreed to come. When the barman serves the orders, he watches Lucas chug down the second glass: his big mouth, pillowy lips, a pair of asymmetrical eyes and protruding ears.

"Okay," Lucas says at last, wincing as the alcohol rushes down his throat. "I'm okay now."

Johnny hums in agreement but it's barely audible against the clinking of glasses and step of new clients coming in. Only two days after the Christmas, the decorations are still hanging over the bar, mistletoe, lights and candy sticks that must be longer after their expiration date. All the clientèle seems as tired and miserable as Johnny feels.

"Do you want me to start?" Johnny goes, unwillingly taking a step forward.

Lucas nods his head. He isn't looking at Johnny, as if he's forcing his eyes to stay at one given point, as if the sight of Johnny's face would anger him too much to listen to him speak.

"Have you ever jerked off with a friend when you were a teen?" he begins, and as soon as the words are pronounced, Lucas sniggers.

"Don't give me the same bullshit."

Johnny clears his throat. "I've no idea what he's already told you. I haven't... talked to him about it."

Lucas doesn't seem to pay much attention to the confession. He orders another round of whisky, despite Johnny's full glass still standing on the counter, raising his big arm to catch the barman's attention. "I know that he cheated on me. With you. He said it."

For the first time this night, or so it seems, he glances back at Johnny, with a hopeful look in his eyes, as if waiting for the man to deny this version of events.

But he doesn't. "One time. This year."

"One time. I guess I should celebrate." Lucas's voice comes out ironic, irony to conceal the hurt he's feeling. When the barman places Lucas's order in front of him, Johnny snatches it away, spilling a few drops in the process.

"I want a serious conversation," Johnny goes, by way of explanation.

Lucas's eyes flicker with irritation. "Serious. Great. I need to know the facts then. So I can decide if I should punch you in the face."

"We jerked off when Mark was eighteen. Regularly."

He has the images still imprinted under his eyelids, the dark circles around the boy's eyes and the black hoodie thrown over his head. He walked into Johnny's bedroom barefoot, both hands carrying a pile of school books which they weren't going to open, stealing kisses and touches instead, for as long as they could before their parents arrival. Reinventing Mark's image in his head, putting the pieces back together, he always starts with Mark's eyes, with how big the are, how bright and curious. Then he adds the sharp edges of the man's face, the kind Johnny has never seen anyone else have, only growing sharper now that he's older.

"And then, this year. We had sex."

Lucas is looking him in the eyes, sharply, carefully, waiting long enough to make sure that Johnny's finished speaking. "So you want to tell me that that's all?"

Johnny clears his throat. His voice comes out so calm and convincing he surprises even himself. "That's all. Just sex. He cheated on you with a guy who happened to be his stepbrother."

When the next pause comes, Lucas continues scrutinising Johnny's face, as if trying to establish whether the man's lying or not, or maybe looking for something else, his eyes quickly sliding down Johnny's neck and up to his nose. Then he looks away, straightening his back and stretching his arms against the bar, which emphasises just how long they are.

"I'll be right back," he tells Johnny, before standing up and directing his steps towards the bathroom.

His figure disappears behind the corner.

Johnny waits for a while. He drinks his glass of whisky, in one mouthful. Taps his fingers against the counter. Then he feels his body stand up but doesn't know exactly why; something pushes him to follow the other man so strongly that he's unable to fight it back. Feels like he's lost control of his own action some time ago, anyway.

The bathroom is rather small and so he immediately locates Lucas's body propped against one of the basins, hands clenched around it and eyes looking into the mirror where he can notice Johnny approach.

"You didn't make a fuss back at your parents' house," Johnny goes. "And you didn't tell about it to anyone."

Lucas's eyes narrow, as he registers Johnny's steps getting closer. He pushes himself off the basin. "I didn't. You can thank me."

"I know you wanted to do this the moment you saw us."

"Do what?"

"Just like you said. Punch me in the face." He stops only an arm's length away from Lucas, hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. "I want you to do it," he says, and he really means it. Suddenly, all he needs is to feel Lucas's fist hit his nose and make him bleed, as dramatic as it may sound. "I feel like a piece of shit."

Lucas drops his eyes to the floor, breathing shallowly. For the time being, there's nobody else in the bathroom with them, all the stalls open, only their two figures reflected in every mirror hanging over the basins. "Quit it," he murmurs, but Johnny can tell that he's on the edge of fulfilling Johnny's request. Anger is bubbling inside him, threateningly close to the surface.

"It was my fault," Johnny goes, his voice lowered, daring. "We didn't use a condom. And I came inside him. When you were sleeping."

And so it happens.

In a flicker of an eyelid, Lucas's fist meets Johnny's nose and the impact makes him momentarily lose balance, taking two wobbly steps back, his head jerking to the side and his hair hitting him in the face.

There's a pause, maybe long, maybe short, during which Johnny's staring at the floor tiles, one hand holding his nose, feeling the wetness spread between his fingers. And then, he pounces and hits Lucas back, aiming at the nose, only Lucas turns his head and Johnny's fist lands somewhere around his jaw, pushing him against back the basin, which he holds onto the very last moment.

After the shock passes, they're looking at each other.

Lucas lifts his one hand and presses it against his chin, the silver watch shining on his wrist. He watches the blood trickling down Johnny's jaw, and Johnny watches himself too, in one of the mirrors.

"You're fucked up," Lucas goes, the pain audible in his voice. When he takes a step forward, Johnny flinches, expecting the second punch to come, but instead, Lucas's hand grabs his hand, taking it away from his nose.

When their lips meet, Johnny tastes his own blood. Lucas's tongue forces it inside his mouth.

His first instinct is to push Lucas away, but somehow his hands end up clenching on Lucas's shirt and bringing him closer, demanding that it continues, same thing Lucas does with his hands, holding Johnny’s chin. As they keep kissing, almost aggressively, Lucas hisses and Johnny knows that it's his chin hurting where Johnny has just hit it, but it turns him on nevertheless. Two steps back, then two more, Johnny’s back hits the open door of one of the stalls. Lucas's eyes are closed, completely focused on Johnny's mouth, which allows Johnny to lead their steps forward. He pushes Lucas inside the stall.

The doors are closed when the kiss finally breaks, Johnny's blood on Lucas's lips and cheek, smeared across of it.

"That was a good punch," Johnny goes, in a whisper, as they stare at one another, chests rising and falling in sharp breaths. "And a good kiss. Do you kiss Mark like this too?"

When Lucas hisses again, this time it's clear arousal. "I do," he goes, his already low voice now so low it's closer to a growl, "when I'm roleplaying you in bed."

Johnny takes a sharp breath in.

And they kiss again, bodies pressed as close as physically possible, Lucas's back against the stall. They're both hard, grinding their erections against one another, both trying to be the one to establish a rhythm. But then, it's still not enough. Lucas's hands reach down between them; he unzips Johnny's trousers, fishes into his underwear to grab his dick and measure it in his hand.

"Keep going," Johnny mouths between the kisses, busy holding Lucas's head, fingers in his hair, pressed against the stall.

So Lucas does. He gives Johnny's erection a few pumps, hands shaking and sloppy with the whisky he's drunk, then hurriedly brings his own dick as well. And that's how they come, Lucas jerking them off, Johnny leading the messy kiss.

The moment they both reach their climax, their bodies separate, as far away as the stall allows it. Lucas's and his own come are on Johnny's shirt and one leg of his trousers and he tries to clean it up, quickly gripping at a few pieces of toilet paper, as if in a nervous attempt of cleaning the evidence of a crime.

Lucas is watching him, in silence, frozen, only his chest moving as he breathes.

"Will you tell Mark?" is the first question Johnny asks.

"Come again?"

Johnny throws the paper into the toilet, then pushes his dick back into his underwear. "I can keep it a secret," he goes. When he looks up at him, Lucas doesn't seem to understand. "I don't want you to break up."

"Johnny..."

"I'm leaving in a week. I haven't told him and I'm not planning to." When Lucas's eyebrows shift up his forehead, Johnny continues, "I'm moving out abroad. I promise you won't see me again."

The following day, Johnny opens the front door to the sight of Mark standing on the "Welcome home" doorstep mat, his black hair poking in all directions, easily toyed with by the strong December wind.

His jacket is unzipped, hands in its pockets and the tip of his nose reddened. He steps right inside, without waiting for an invitation on Johnny's side, his jacket flapping against his legs. The door closes and Johnny watches the younger man walk down the hall like it's any other day, nothing unusual. Like he's just come back from school, only he's twenty three and no longer attends classes and Johnny doesn't even know where he works now, how he makes a living.

"Mark Lee, what a surprise," he goes, and Mark throws him a sharp glance in response.

There are hollows under his eyes, a sort of tiredness all over his face that renders its features more angular, his cheekbones even more protruding. His chapped lips are set into a firm, straight line when he speaks up, "I've talked to Lucas. I know you punched him in the face."

Johnny sighs, immediately annoyed by the tone of Mark's voice. He follows Mark inside the house. "You're lucky our parents are out," he points out, more to himself than to Mark, or so it seems.

"I don't care," Mark retorts immediately. "I just no longer care."

A mocking laughter escapes Johnny's throat. "And have you ever cared?"

Mark ignores the words. His stare contains a sharp accusation, hurt ego of a child throwing a tantrum, that's how Johnny chooses to perceive it right now. "You jerked off with him in a bathroom stall."

And at those words, Johnny's body flinches. He closes his eyes, suddenly embarrassed, as if he hasn't yet come to terms with the fact that this is what actually happened. "Mark..."

"Is this some sort of punishment? A revenge?"

So Mark is standing right there, in the middle of their living room, with the wooden staircase behind his back, shoes leaving wet prints on the floor boards, the jacket sliding off of his one arm. And Johnny has to go through this conversation, the last thing he's wanted to happen. He can barely breathe.

"It was a mistake," Johnny admits. "I'm sorry."

"So that's how it went? Nobody thought of talking to me. You just decided to discuss it by yourselves?" He lets out a dry, laugh-like sigh. "I hate it when you treat me like I'm a child."

"Because you still act like one. When you make a fucking decision, just stick to it like a goddamned grown-up man and accept the consequences." Then, when Mark raises his eyebrows, he adds, "You left. I understood the message."

That only angers Mark more. His eyes narrowed into slits and shining with resentment, the tendons on his neck popping out and the whole body taut, he takes a step towards Johnny. "I was terrified and I had nobody to talk to about it. Are you surprised?"

"There is nothing to talk about," Johnny corrects him. Quickly updating the plan in his head, he attempts to follow it, give the eplanation that he's prepared beforehand. "Lucas had sex with me because he knows that that's all there is to it. It's just about sex. Kinky sex between step brothers where I spank you and tell you, Mark Lee, you need to be a good fucking boy."

"You know that's not true."

"Mark." Johnny's voice grows sharp. "Don't complicate things. I beg you."

And when Mark replies, his words sound almost like another accusation in a long sequence. They are angry, rushed, almost spiteful. He says, "I think I love you," and time comes to a halt in just a second, at the sound of his voice, at his will.

All of the air is drained out of Johnny's lungs. His body grows cold.

"Mark," is all he is capable of blurting out once he regains the ability to produce sounds. He struggles to relocate himself in time and space, stabilise his existence within a whole new reality that's completely foreign to him, which he has never considered belonging to and has no knowledge of, where nothing he has been familiar with till this point carries any relevance.

Mark is standing in front of him, hand clamped over his mouth as if he's just let out a curse word and was expecting punishment. And the sight makes Johnny's whole body ache.

He doesn't want to say what he's about to say, but knows that he has to.

"Mark, fuck, you don't even know me." The words rush out of him. "You haven't actually spoken to me for four years. Ever since we met in this goddamned shopping centre, you haven't once asked me about my life and what I'm doing in it. You don't know shit about me."

And contrary to what Johnny has expected, Mark doesn't immediately reply. Like he knows there's no right answer and that he has no actual defence, no excuse, his eyes running around the floor and eyelids quickly blinking.

And then he goes, "We took a break."

Johnny's face sets in a grim scowl. "What?"

Mark's voice grows quiet, as though he's afraid to continue talking. "I told him that I need a break." Only then, his quickly running eyes bump into one of Johnny's suitcases, open, half-filled, still waiting for the packing process to be finished. Then they flicker back to Johnny's face. Mark's own voice must sound shrill and pathetic in his ears. "Why... are you packing your stuff?"

"Mark." Johnny clears his throat. "I'm moving out abroad."

Picking up the phone and pressing it against his ear, the first thing Lucas hears is the noise of the wind that's hitting Mark's cell phone, then a loud breath, choked inside Mark's throat.

"Lucas," the small voice asks him. "Can you... go back home?"

Lucas unglues his eyes from the table, up towards where Elkie is leaning towards him, her eyes widened and hands gesturing vehemently in an attempt to stop him. He bites on his lower lip and quickly stands up, steps heading out of the room, to somewhere where his sister won't interrupt the conversation.

"Have you just... talked to him?" he asks, even though he already knows the answer.

"Lucas. I'm sorry." Mark's breathing grows heavier. "Can you please come back? I want to tell you everything."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> grand blanc - degré zéro.

**Author's Note:**

> This story hasn't been consciously written as much as it just happened right into my wordpad document. Hopefully it's not too weird.


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